


mistletoe

by jubilantly



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21934612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jubilantly/pseuds/jubilantly
Summary: "Did Samot invent that, too?", says Fero one day, sudden like most of the things he says, pointing upwards to where mistletoe is growing on a tree.
Relationships: Fero Feritas & Samol, Samot/Samothes (Friends at the Table)
Kudos: 15





	mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rileylefay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rileylefay/gifts).



> This is not a christmas present but I did promise to have it done and posted before christmas so we'll just have to live with my inability to find a good title.

"Did Samot invent that, too?", says Fero one day, sudden like most of the things he says, pointing upwards to where mistletoe is growing on a tree.

Samol follows his gaze even though he doesn't really need to. Looks at the mistletoe and takes note of it in particular, because he hasn't in a long time. It’s a strange thing, mistletoe, changing the landscape of another plant; here, there’s so much of it that the tree doesn't look like itself anymore, and it’s fun to look at, and less fun to think about maybe if you think on a scale small enough to care about individual trees, and it’s a small part of the world, but it’s Samol’s, it exists, he made it.

"Nah. I did."

There’s a split-second in which Fero is only waving his hands and widening his eyes, and then he’s talking loudly too.

“Why would you do that!”

Samol raises his eyebrows.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

(A memory, unbidden but welcome, clear because Samol is grounded in the present by having company—

The world used to be simpler, not just when reconfiguration hadn’t yet fallen apart at the seams but before it had started happening as such, when everything was still floods and volcanoes and tall forests and small content creatures, when Samol woke up in the morning with the flowers opening and breathing was easy and he was only a little lonely—

The concept of dependence, interaction.

Something growing on something else, attached, and he didn’t care at the time if it was good or bad for the thing that was being attached to. It was a thought-desire like all the other things, breathe in and out and create create create, be, become: a plant on a plant like that bigger plant on him, taking from and being part of.

Interconnectedness. Something like that but not.

Something.

He is everything and everything is him, and he is not in perfect harmony with himself in all things, but what he is works well, like circles in circles.

Used to work well, that is.)

"Just seems kind of like it'd be more Samot’s thing, I guess."

Voice loud as always, and Samol shakes himself out of memory (not really, not quite, memory is in him like tree rings always, all that he has been still at his core, holding him up, used to be, used to be) and turns his attention to Fero, to answering, to recalling some other thing maybe.

"It very much was his thing for a while there."

Fero makes a face.

“Sure he didn’t come up with the, you know, the kissing thing?”

“Very sure. I did that, for a given value of coming up with.”

(When he tells stories, it seems often like all he has done was accidents, naming this place and making traditions and wreaking havoc and causing whatever else, but.

But.

It’s not so much that things spiralled, it’s that a movement of his little finger is a movement of a mountain, his every breath a wind across fields, his every word a shift in what the world is and means and needs, and when he talks to ordinary people… well.

“What’s that good for,” someone once asked him, pointing as Fero would do up at the mistletoe, “What are we supposed to do with that.”

“Does it have to be good for something,” Samol asked, and saw immediately that that wasn’t a good enough answer, and got exasperated, and threw his hands in the air. “I’m sure you can figure something out, some remedy or medicine, and if all else fails you can nail it to your door and tell that boy, if there is one, that it means he has to kiss you.”

And he supposes that was a good enough answer.)

"Kind of a stupid idea."

As he always does, Fero says it with the kind of frankness that both does not care at all and cares a lot about irking others; Samol shakes his head, smiling.

"I did occasionally regret that part, yes."

(This he can tell Fero, but his words will not do it justice: a story of gods who used to be both more and less like all the other people in this world.

Many years ago, many breaths days harvests ago, Samot and Samothes were in love, he has to remember sometimes, in truth in love, selflessly and selfishly and happily and with all they had, and often they were in love in Samol’s kitchen.

Their own kitchen, but really, there’s a kind of love that makes a good cook of someone and there’s a kind of love that does the opposite, and Samothes and Samot always had the latter.

Samol would throw them out of the kitchen and they would come back in anyway, leaning on doorways and looking at each other and laughing about everything and nothing, and one day Samot brought back mistletoe, and an explanation of tradition, knowledge gained from someone and added delightedly to his store of things he knew about the world and told with a smirk to Samothes, and acted upon immediately.

That part is very clear in Samol’s memory.

Mistletoe, a small sprig, attached with some effort and some laughter to the kitchen doorway.

Samot, grinning.

Samothes, smiling back at him.

Samol making exasperated fond noises about them and making good food at the same time, for his family, for these fools, for his boys.

The doorway blocked more than ever.

“You have all eternity for this,” he said to them, “but the food needs to be carried to the table, so if you could just—”

And he made a shooing motion at the two of them, who were already, for listening, as separated as they could get at that moment, which wasn’t far, and Samot huffed, amused, and Samothes carried the food to the table.

And they stood in the doorway again later, when Samol was carrying dirty dishes.

“Really!”, he said, and heard himself sound more fond than anything else, “I didn’t raise either of you to be like this.”

He joked, too, about regretting that he’d caused the tradition, and nearly meant it.

Now, here, later, falling apart, having watched them fall apart, he would do anything to have that moment back, blocked doorway and all.

But he can’t, and they will all have to live and die and be dead, to live if they can, with what things are.)

"What about you, Fero? Ever kissed anyone under the mistletoe?"

Not just a light question, but one meant to throw the conversation off its track, because Samol knows Fero by now, knows how he will—

"No! Gross," says Fero, immediately. "Ugh!"

Samol laughs.

The world, for now, goes on, and may yet be saved, and if it is saved without him in it, he does not mind.

There are tree rings of memories inside him, cherished, and the important ones will not be lost, because they touched other people, and other people carry them with themselves, further, onwards. Higher on.


End file.
